5/27/16

Five years ago, we took a risk. We took $7,000. We gave $5,000 to a lawyer to start working on our trademarks and incorporation. We paid $1800 to a local letterpress printer to print us up ten designs. We spent the other $200 on letterhead. We sent emails to our friends. We sent emails to bloggers. We went to the airport to fly to a wedding in Ohio. We got a text. "Holy shit. You are on @designsponge." We'd managed to hit Grace Bonney's inbox at a moment she was around. She took a chance and wrote about us. A little Southern startup, operating from Boston, making things for Southerners like her who were away from home. Folks who'd risked moving away from what they knew to try and strike it on their own. We got home and had to figure out how to ship prints. We called up friends. We hand wrote names and thank you cards. We carried a bag of 48 prints to the Arlington post office. We celebrated. I got up every morning for 18 months at 5:00 am and worked until 8:00 am. Then went to work. Then home to work another 5 hours. Gave up weekends. Packed up prints every night. Then Marianna left her job to run the business. It got real. We're still here. We still have great days. We still have crap days. We still make all our goods in America. We still bicker about print designs and we still sweat the dollars and the details because we've got customers who we give a damn about. We risked a lot. We gave a lot. We grew a lot. We owe a lot. And to every one of you who took a risk on us, we're mighty thankful. More than you know. #letterboardfridays

We've been making prints for five years and we'd love to see where they've ended up. Take a new snap of yours, tag it with #printsgoinghome, and you could win $100. Tomorrow is the last day to enter. 📷🙌🏻

5/20/16

5/18/16

In 4th grade, I was Tombigbee. It was Mrs. Ford's class, and we were all assigned a river in the state. We had to play them and mine was on the Great State Seal and I was going to play it with conviction, man. So I did. And so did the other kids, giving life to the major and minor rivers and tributaries and brackish waterways and watersheds of Alabama. Some of those rivers changed history. Some of the bridges did, too.

5/15/16

It happens often. Folk say they like my name, ask where it's from. “Hebrew. It's in the Bible. Old Testament prophet. You've never heard of em? Well, let me tell my favorite verse from Micah: He has shown you, o man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Every day I do my best to think about that. Act. Walk. Love. Act. Walk. Love. Act. Walk. Love...